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Thursday, January 11, 2018

A Promotional Comic

Raw Data: Ride the Wave (Survios, 2017, free)
The third in a series of seven promotional comic books, this issue focuses on the hero character Boss from the VR first-person shooter video gameRaw Data, the first consumer VR game to sell $1 million in a month. It's a 10-page read written by Jonathan Callan and drawn by Darick Robertson.

Boss, a cybernetic mercenary, wakes in a hotel to discover that a reckless kid stole his stuff, including his coat. He gives chase, eventually catching up with the thief. "The fall is inevitable. There's no avoiding that. All you can do is manage the landing."

As a scene setter for a video game, the comic works. This is an effective way to communicate back story and develop characters beyond what might be possible in a VR game, and the comic is classic cyberpunk stuff: William Gibson by way of Shadowrun. There are some friendly in jokes, such as a billboard saying "Drink Emig," name dropping the comic's editor.

The true test of a promotional comic might be this: Does it make you want to try the product or service it promotes? Truth be told, it didn't make me want to play the game. But it did make me want to read the comic. I read this issue twice and will probably read it again. And—if the characters were more fully fleshed out—I could easily see this as an ongoing licensed comic published by Dynamite (publisher of Agent 47), Titan (which puts out Assassin's Creed Origins and Quake Champions), or even Dark Horse (which does Dragon Age comics).

The back matter includes several advertisements for Eden Corp. products.

Availability: The previous issues are available online. We recommend William Gibson's Neuromancer.